Not sure I agree there. There are plenty of historical examples of people seeing things in bizarre ways that simply weren't true. We see this recently with crim

Not sure I agree there. There are plenty of historical examples of people seeing things in bizarre ways that simply weren't true. We see this recently with crime statistics dropping across the board, terrorism being less dangerous than bees, and people feeling less safe than ever. I'd say plenty of people aren't fully aware of ways in which their lives get cheaper or better. That's just 'normal'. Whereas growing up and paying $2 for a coffee, and now 15 years later it's $3, is just a sign of you getting squeezed, and people are very much aware of that. One cognitive / measurement issue here is hedonic inflation. For example, the average new home was 1000 square feet in the 20th century and 2500 square feet today. Meanwhile, average household sizes decreased. We all got bigger houses with fewer people to share them with. We also got universal central heating, hot piped water, flush toilets. Similarly, our computers have gotten faster. I don't need to explain the implications of moore's law to anyone here. Suppose the average $1000 computer gets twice as fast previous year. Is that to be measured as inflation or no change? No change? Perhaps, average prices remained constant. But inflation is, among other things, a purchasing power kind of metric. 'How much computing power can I purchase with this money'. In that sense, prices halved. In short, there was deflation, on a hedonic basis. This is something a lot of people don't realise. Inflation figures are sometimes suppressed by such improvements (which halved computing prices, even if sticker prices didn't change). Homes got more than twice as big, computers a thousand times as fast, these things can't simply be ignored by stating 'average homes and computers are more expensive', which is the reality that people experience in real life when looking at sticker prices of computers and rental properties. The reality that people often omit is that the product itself has massively improved. Same with healthcare. Yes, costs increased. So did outcomes. Try surviving cancer today vs 50 years ago. Try living till 80 years old on average, 50 years ago, when life expectancy was sub 70. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?tab=chart&country=USA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?tab=chart...